A group of Tibetan monks will be at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown San Jose to create a sand painting -- or sand mandala -- and spread a message of world peace in the process.

The monks from South India are on a three-month tour of the West Coast creating sand mandalas, which are intricate, colorful works of art from Tibetan Buddhism. And they're supposed to generate good vibes for the entire region where they're created. There's an opening ceremony scheduled for noon Tuesday, and the monks will be creating the delicate artwork afterward and during the day for the rest of the week.

A closing ceremony, including traditional chanting and music, is scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday. And after that -- to symbolize the impermanence of life -- the sand mandala will be destroyed.

All the ceremonies and construction will take place in the lobby at the corner of Fourth and East San Fernando streets, and it's all open to the public.

TALK OF THE TOWN: Anne Sconberg and Mark Henderson's house in San Jose's Naglee Park neighborhood was packed for a book-signing party Thursday night. These weren't your normal literary types and this was no ordinary book-signing, as the book in question was "Fishtails," Nanci Williams' fictionalized memoir about re-entering the dating world after being out of the game for a while.

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People were scanning their copies to see if Williams, who co-founded the Orloff Williams PR firm with husband Dan Orloff, included them -- or some made-up version of them -- in the book. Some of Williams' close friends among San Jose movers and shakers, like Vicki Day and Georgie Huff, are easy to spot, others not as much.

Williams signed every copy in a unique fashion, though, by kissing the cover page. You can find it in paperback online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble's website.

NOT JUST KID STUFF: Psychologist Erica Pelavin is leading an interactive workshop at St. Martin of Tours Church in San Jose on Tuesday night about the long-lasting effects that today's students could encounter because of social media posts and other online "mistakes" they could make. Pelavin called these "digital tattoos," and you've only got to look at some of the short-tempered and often boneheaded tweets that followed last week's election to realize how damaging some of these off-the-cuff remarks can be.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. event, which is the second in a three-part series of parenting workshops offered by St. Martin of Tours School, are $12 at the door (200 O'Connor Drive). Get more information or preregister at www.stmartinsj.org.